I had my first multiplayer game today. But I didn’t need to have it before already realizing with a couple of VS CPU that Taiidan and Kushan are two very weak races in comparison to Hiigaran and Vaygr.

Here is a few things…

The balance between Taiidan/Kushan and Hiigaran/Vaygr is terrible. Taiidan/Kushan are a lot weaker than their HW2 counterparts. I will explain more why below.

Taiidan/Kushan doesn’t have shipyards. In a longer running game, as soon Hiigaran/Vaygr get even their first shipyard, not to even talk about the second one, Taiidan/Kushan cannot keep up to the building rate of ships.

Upgrades! I mean hello? Did you guys really test hundreds of games as you said? I figured this out with my first game with Taiidan. Taiidan/Kushan have no upgrades. Just midgame Hiigaran/Vaygr will have more armor and speed then Taiidan/Kushan. When playing VS CPU games, everything being the same setup except I’m Taiidan/Kushan VS Hiigaran/Vaygr, it’s WAY HARDER.

Taiidan/Kushan have no effective Strong VS Corvette. Assault Frigates says they are Strong VS Corvettes but they SUCK. They are no where near as effective as Hiigaran/Vaygr Assault Frigates. And Missile Destroyers? Well, they are OK but if the enemy pumps out mass corvettes you’re in big trouble as Kushan/Taiidan.
*Subsystems, Fire Control Towers, Hyperspace Modules on Battle Cruisers. All this are only Vaygr/Hiigaran. Big disadvantage for Kushan/Taiidan.

Squadrons! Why didn’t you just implement squadrons for Taiidan and Kushan?! The fighter and corvette classes fight way more effectively as squadrons! Not to mention the speed upgrades Hiigaran/Vaygr get that actually increases the Rate of Fire since they can faster Hit&Run.

That’s what I can think of, at the top of my head right now. Basically the Kushan and Taiidan have numerous disadvantages just from the get go. If I were to rate a race all in all, Hiigaren/Vaygr being 10/10, Kushan/Taiidan is like 6/10 or 7/10. A battle 1v1 Heavy Cruiser VS Battle Cruiser, Battle Cruiser wins everytime. What the hell?

Really, the only way for Multiplayer / VS CPU to be enjoyable is to add loads of specializes ships in every class like they did with the Complex Mod. That ■■■■ made the game so much better and enjoyable and even put more unique flavors to the races. It was more balanced. Crew Systems. Loads of ship classes, and even if only one race had upgradable capital ships with a level system, it was still pretty balanced!

If you want a balanced Multiplayer you must add ship classes, subsystems, shipyards at least to the Kushan and Taiidan. And as other topic states, Kushan and Taiidan are very similar. Yea it’s an old game but if you already remastered the game, you might as well balance it with new ships. If someone don’t like it they can just go back to HW Classic, but I’m pretty certain everyone can agree.

Corvettes are also ineffective…I could care less about fighters and vettes being in squadrens, I just want my heavy and multi-gun corvettes to face forwards like defenders. If corvettes were effective it would make a big difference.

Assault frigates are about the only unit that doesn’t suck in the early game…and they are good against corvettes, but they’re all-rounders.

Upgrades also have a big impact that’s true.

Another thing to mention is that attack bombers are so much harder to get and build than bomber squadrens. hiigaran need just a fighter subsystem (500 RUs), Vaygr also need a research mod subsystem and research, but plasma bomb research for kushan and taidan is 400, while it’s a mere 250 for Vaygr and the research ship is 750 compared to the 500 of the Vaygr module.

Everything else is subject to minor tweaking.

Basically:

Broken Corvettes
Upgrades
Bomber tech

Squadrons can be accounted for by making the individual strike craft a tad cheaper,

As for shipyards…That’s only a problem if squad caps are raised…a single shipyard and a pride/flagship is still inferior to the construction rate of a mothership, as they can only build 1 capital ship at a time, and only the shipyard can make battlecruisers.

OK. Now I know what I am about to say will draw the ire of a few hardcore HW1 players, as no one wants to have their best strategies stated publicly.

The combination of assault frigs and grav well generators is devastating and can be brought online relatively quickly. In one match I held off two large fleets of strike craft (inc corvs) of two players and left my frigs to take out the disabled ships at range; i.e. too far for them to shoot back.

There are balance issues but it is too soon to come down on either side firmly. Lets play and discover the loop holes a little further.

Definitely agree on Kushan/Taiidan having a significantly weaker mid & lategame.
The HW2 races beat the HW1 races in production capability once they have shipyards available and researched improved manufacturing.

Being able to churn out two battlecruisers for every one equivalent that Kushan/Taiidan produces decides the lategame - not only this but the massive boost in effectiveness received from both firecontrol towers/command corvettes and armor upgrades make HW1 races utterly outclassed at that point.

The only real production edge that Kushan/Taiidan have over HW2 races in mid to lategame is being able to churn out more strikecraft and frigates because of the duel queue each carrier and the mothership has (does not let you build two of the exact same ship however). But spamming frigates en masse to counter the extra destroyers/battlecruisers that Vagyr/Hig opponents are building is like trying to block punches with your face.

Some possible suggestions:

Allow the duel production queue of HW1 races to produce two of the same ship:
i.e. both queues of a mothership being able to build a heavy cruiser each - this could be a research tech.

Allow the HW1 races to warp in other motherships:
Gives Kushan/Taiidan a shipyard equivalent and allow players to build more than one heavy cruiser simultaneously.

Give HW1 races researchable ship upgrades:
This would not necessarily mean a copy & paste of the speed and armor upgrades that Vagyr/Hig receive, one could be creative and take a page from HW: Cataclysm and introduce the “Energy Cannon upgrade” that replaces all mass driver/projectile weapons with a stronger energy weapon.

The combination of assault frigs and grav well generators is devastating and can be brought online relatively quickly. In one match I held off two large fleets of strike craft (inc corvs) of two players and left my frigs to take out the disabled ships at range; i.e. too far for them to shoot back.

I’m guilty of this tactic too.
The grav well generator definitely makes Kushan/Taiidan have a strong early-game as your opponent’s fleet likely consists of nothing but fighters & corvettes (I would argue that it’s currently only super effective due to the average player being unaware of it or its capability given the game was only released a few days ago, I’ve had opponents not even realise why their fighters would not respond to commands).

Past the early game, it only serves as a strikecraft deterrant as they are easily sniped by a few frigates or a destroyer. Not to mention, the gravwell also affects your own fighters and corvettes. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t affect ally strikecraft when its turned on - dev oversight or intended?

But spamming frigates en masse to counter the extra destroyers/battlecruisers that Vagyr/Hig opponents are building is like trying to block punches with your face.

Not an issue with normal ship caps, you can only build one battlecruiser at a time, just like HW1 can only make one heavy cruiser.

Now if you’re talking about raised unit caps…HW2 races will totally dominate. Fortunately production is balanced between HW1 and HW2 races if on normal build limits ( that’s about the only thing that IS balanced).

Now if you’re talking about raised unit caps…HW2 races will totally dominate. Fortunately production is balanced between HW1 and HW2 races if on normal build limits ( that’s about the only thing that IS balanced).

This raises an interesting question about what game conditions Gearbox is likely to balance multiplayer on. I’d argue normal unit cap numbers could use a bit of a revision as they are still the same since HW2 - some of the limits on specific units within ship classes seem entirely arbitrary.

HW1 does have a slight advantage on rushing, due the fact that they can double build on each ship, but after 10 to 15 minutes they nosedive badly, it is absurd, the reason? UPGRADES, i got pwned once in a game where i were clearly winning, cuz my frigates had almost half of the hit poitns of his upgraded frigates, even though i had like 4 k in the bank i couldn’t do anything to make my frigs catch up, result, what started like a 8 frigs against 3 of him ended up with me losing, my frigates were eaten alive by his upgraded frigates.

The HW1 races rely 100% on winning within a few minutes after they finish researching Ion Cannon Frigates. If they are unable to do this, they lose.

HW2 upgrades are absurdly effective. The difference between 0/0 laser corvettes and 2/2 laser corvettes is like the difference between 0/0 zerglings and 3/3 adrenalings - except that you can finish 2/2 upgrades in a very short time, without needing any advanced research (unlike Lair/Hive in SC/SC2).

Once the HW2 race has 2/2 upgraded ships, they are simply so much more cost effective that their disadvantage in production facilities doesn’t really matter. The game rarely ever gets to the “Upgraded Shipyard” stage, and if it does then it becomes even more ridiculous.

Hence the “BETA” in the multi-player title. I agree however. The HW1 races need something in the form of a shipyard because even though they can build cruisers from the MS, there is only 1 MS per player and HW2 races can pump out shipyards. Making HW1 ships more modular would be great. Like extra weapon hard points or armor refit to help them against HW2 vessels would be outstanding.

In my opinion I think a step in the right direction may be to add some kind of upgrades for HW1 races so that they can at least attempt to compete later on, HW2 races end up being more heavily armored or/and faster which then makes the HW1 races redundant in almost every way possible, at the moment once the 20-30min mark is reached the game is already over for HW1 races because they can’t match the efficiency of the HW2 races. This means that the only way to play (effecitvely) is to rush, and this should not be the only viable tactic in my opinion.

They should both have access to the same kind of research, fighter speed, corvette speed, cap speed/armor, all of these little things would make the HW1 races be a bit more able to bring something to the table later on and would solve a lot of issues (could potentially make smoe too)

As for shipyards…That’s only a problem if squad caps are raised…a single shipyard and a pride/flagship is still inferior to the construction rate of a mothership, as they can only build 1 capital ship at a time, and only the shipyard can make battlecruisers.

No, the problem is bigger: you lose your mothership (Kushan/Taiidan side) and you are dead, the Hiigaran/Vaygr player loses his shipyard and even a carrier can build it back.

Plus let’s not talk of the identical caps for destroyers/capital ships. That’s just nonsense and rather than implementing upgrades to HW1 ships when they didn’t exist before I’d rather double the big ships cap.
2 heavy cruisers vs a fully upgraded battlecruiser is almost fair.

From what I heard, one of the biggest issues with HW1 races might be relating to flight scripts, with some of the HW1 corvettes that originally were meant to strafe enemy ships whil facing them are using run-and-gun flight patterns of the 360 degrees turrets of the HW2 gunships and their likes. I could have heard that one wrong.

(amongst other ships)

On the pro side of things, even that might be easy-ish to fix in the end as angle facing and such might be an easily changed stat in ship files.

No, the problem is bigger: you lose your mothership (Kushan/Taiidan side) and you are dead, the Hiigaran/Vaygr player loses his shipyard and even a carrier can build it back.

This is quite important isn’t it? Facing overwhelming odds I did a sneak attack to destroy a HW2 player’s MS. Made not the bit of difference given all his shipyards and carriers. Had that been a HW1 player mind…

Still, even if that change was made you would still loose the ability to produce capital ships. I really want to avoid saying that HW1 factions would require some sort of ‘shipyard’, even if that were a structure drawn from the HW1 campaign instead of a straight import of the shipyard from HW2

Still, even if that change was made you would still loose the ability to produce capital ships. I really want to avoid saying that HW1 factions would require some sort of ‘shipyard’, even if that were a structure drawn from the HW1 campaign instead of a straight import of the shipyard from HW2

Kushan/Taiidan losing their mothership is no different to Vagyr/Hiigaran losing both their mothership and shipyard - in either case carriers, destroyers and battlecruisers can no longer be built.

The balance issue here is that Vagyr/Hiigaran carriers can warp in a shipyard and regain the ability to build destroyers/carriers/battlecruisers but Kushan/Taiidan cannot.

The answer is simple: allow Kushan/Taiidan carriers to warp in another mothership if it is destroyed.

Not only do you need to pay for the shipyard but its modules as well, then add the fact that they’re pretty fragile and so slow you might as well call them immobile, you’re pretty screwed if you loose your mothership regardless of race.